Thanksgiving

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Happy Thanksgiving! This year I am thankful for so many things, I feel so lucky to be blessed with such amazing friends and family, husband, child, beautiful home walking distance to most everything, garden, yard with fruit trees, just so many blessings I could go on and on. Rather I will remind myself to be grateful every day for everything, living with the attitude of thanks.

I hope everyone is enjoying the fruits of their busy cooking day yesterday: leftovers! Aren't they the best? This year I brined our turkey to wonderful results. Once you brine, you never go back, or so I have heard, and now believe! Another new one this year was a jellied cranberry-apple sauce that I think will become a tradition, recipe thanks to Food and Wine magazine. A fuji apple adds pectin to the cranberry sauce creating a moldable jelly. I used a loaf pan to mold the jewel-colored sauce studded with apple bits. The apple created an even, innocuous background, a perfect counterpoint to the acidity of the cranberries. Translation: delicious!

Thanksgiving Day started early with our local toddler Turkey Trot. Our good friend and neighbor is an avid runner and offered to run the one-mile race with our little one. Patrick and I watched proudly from the sidelines as they rounded the track and headed into the hills to complete the one-mile loop. We waited anxiously as they disappeared from view behind the hill. Finally, we saw them reappear and begin the final lap. Babou was no longer running, her head and shoulders down, and I felt more than saw, her lower lip wobbling. She had fallen while running down the hill at full speed. We started cheering and Babou looked up and saw us. She straightened up, pulled her eyebrows together in concentration, and started running...right into my arms! My heart broke as my love for her grew, bursting its mold again. Love, it seems, knows no limits. And that is what I am most thankful for.

Earthly Delights

At its heart, a genuine food culture is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them.

-Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

The choices I make now about my food will influence the rest of my life. If a lot of us felt this way, and started thinking carefully about our consumption habits just one meal at a time, we could affect the future of our planet.

-Camille Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I finally finished Animal Vegetable Mineral: A Year of Food Life, and am enjoying the afterglow of inspiration while still trying to digest its far reaching focus.

It is both a new and old way of looking at food and our relationship to it. Reading about Kingsolver's garden, her canning, and her garden journals filled with nature notes were all food for my soul. The outdoors have always been a particular place of joy for me, the changing smells of the seasons, the excitement of growing things, the lessons plants teach us silently, leading by leafy example. It is amazing just how much nature is woven into our being if we just go outside and are reminded. For me, it is the ultimate sanctuary, the ultimate grace.

The book also reminded me of the importance of a food culture, of individual knowledge of our food. It reminded me of the manager of the french restaurant I worked for during college. When it was slow, we would often talk about her life growing up in France. She would happily regale me with colorful details of their daily meals, her mother's careful preparation of each menu, her loving care of their family's potager. Their garden supplied most of their fresh vegetables, and other goods were bought locally and produced locally. Regional pride prevailed. Natural ingredients created with care and pride made fulfilling, shared meals that nourished both body and soul, family and community. And. as importantly, the environment, the land, and its natural abundance.

We have now had a vegetable garden for the past three years, slowly growing more proficient with time. This year is the first that I will continue growing through our mild winter, and next year I plan to learn to can, learning to store the bounty of summer. Reading this book makes me realize at a very deep level what I do impacts more than myself and the environment, it also affects my daughter and future generations. I want to teach her where her food comes from, I want her to feel the excitement of sowing a seed and watching it grow, and I want her to internalize the deep happiness that comes with that ancient alchemy of earth, air, and growing things.

Weekly Report

Last week we had the great fun of having Rescue Ranger come for a visit! Babou thought he seemed more like a jungle gym than a cousin! Patrick's mother also came for a visit so Babou was about beside herself trying to keep everyone entertained!

It was all too much for her, and she got sick, as did I. The end of last week and the beginning of this week were spent getting well. Babou has made a full recovery as of yesterday and I am pretty much better too except for a nagging cough.

Needless to say, between company and sickness, there has not been much time to get anything done and I am starting to feel angsty. I need to work on my writing project more, a lot more, and I need to plant the winter garden. And then I need to get going on the bigger projects I am trying to finish before the baby comes. It is crazy to think, but next month will be so busy between Christmas and lots of family birthdays (including Babou and Patrick's) that I see time slipping away so quickly. Plus, hopefully, I will be starting a new job next month! I am very excited about it all but feel I can't waste another minute.

Still, life goes on and you know it should be enjoyed. I am lacking that feeling of joy and inspiration I depend on to happily move ahead...so...I have decided to take Loco O and Babou on a hike this morning, a much needed walkabout. We usually take some kind of walk-about/outing a day, usually to the park, so I decided to do something different today. And maybe I will treat myself to a latte along the way! That way I can spend the afternoon writing and gardening free of any worries that I am neglecting my dog or child as they have already gotten to run about! And I can focus, hopefully!

Halloween

The shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,

Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"

-Dexter Kozen

And what a day and night it was! This was the first Halloween that Babou has really "gotten." It seems more and more, at an amazing rate, Babou is "getting" things. Yesterday, she sat down to do some drawing and, instead of her usual horizontal scribbles, she announced that she was going to draw me! She then proceeded to draw a circle and add eyes, nose, etc ! I could not believe it! It was, albeit, an abstract, but still, she managed to get the idea and had suddenly leapt out of scribbles into something much more realistic. I was so proud!

We spent halloween afternoon making popcorn balls, I think more for myself than for anyone, really! It eased us into the sugar debauchery to follow!

We ate a good dinner and dressed and then, when Patrick got home from work, he put the finishing touches on our little ladybug and we set off!

She was a little rusty at trick or treat etiquette and it took her a couple of houses before she could remember to say "trick or treat" at the door instead of "I want some candy," as she did at first!But once she got into the swing of things, she was one happy ladybug!

She would collect her goodies and say "another house please" and we would say, yes, that we were going to go to another house, to which she replied, again and again, "fantastic!"

She was giddy by the time we got home and I could barely get her night times on and get her teeth very carefully brushed before she crawled onto my lap and promptly fell fast asleep! The contented sleep of a perfect Halloween!